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WHY TRADE STOCK
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Trading appears deceptively easy. When a beginner wins, he feels brilliant and invincible. Then he takes wild risks and loses everything.

People trade for many reasons —some rational and many irrational. Trading offers an opportunity to make a lot of money in a hurry. Money symbolizes freedom to many people, even though they often do not know what to do with their freedom.

If you know how to trade, you can make your own hours, live and work wherever you please, and never answer to a boss. Trading is a fascinating intellectual pursuit: chess, poker, and a crossword rolled in one. Trading attracts people who love puzzles and brainteasers.

Trading attracts risk-takers and repels those who avoid risk. An average person gets up in the morning, goes to work, has a lunch break, returns home, has a beer and dinner, watches TV, and goes to sleep. If he makes a few extra dollars, he puts them into a savings account. A trader keeps odd hours and puts his capital at risk. Many traders are loners who abandon the certainty of the present and take a leap into the unknown.

Self-Fulfillment

Most people have an innate drive to achieve their personal best, to develop their abilities to the fullest. This drive, along with the pleasure of the game and the lure of money, propels traders to challenge the markets.

Good traders tend to be hardworking and shrewd men. They are open to new ideas. The goal of a good trader, paradoxically, is not to make money. His goal is to trade well. If he trades right, money follows almost as an afterthought. Successful traders keep honing their skills. Trying to reach their personal best is more important to them than making money.

A successful New York trader said to me: "If I become half a percent smarter each year, I'll be a genius by the time I die." His drive to improve himself is the hallmark of a successful trader.

A professional trader from Texas invited me to his office and said: "If you sit across the table from me while I day-trade, you won't be able to tell whether I am $2000 ahead or $2000 behind on that day." He has risen to a level where winning does not elate him and losing does not deflate him. He is so focused on trading right and improving his skills that money no longer influences his emotions.

The trouble with self-fulfillment is that many people have a self-destructive streak. Accident-prone drivers keep destroying their cars, and self- destructive traders keep destroying their accounts (see Section 7). Markets offer unlimited opportunities for self-sabotage, as well as for self-fulfillment. Acting out your internal conflicts in the marketplace is a very expensive proposition.

Traders who are not at peace with themselves often try to fulfill their contradictory wishes in the market. If you do not know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere you never wanted to be.

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